


Statues of What Once Was

by glitterlessgold490



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: FeanorianWeek, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-10-11 10:24:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10462737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitterlessgold490/pseuds/glitterlessgold490
Summary: Nerdanel is left behind, but not alone.





	

Fëanáro is pleased with her statue of him. “That is the son of Finwë,” he says, proudly, touching his hand to the smooth marble. “I look like a king.”

It is true. Nerdanel had carved the stone in clear, bold lines. Fëanáro’s likeness stands tall and straight, one hand bearing a scroll, the other nobly outstretched to his imagined people. She had carved his face with lips parted, about to speak, and it had taken her a month to figure out how to capture the fire in his eyes. Upon his brow she had etched a circlet, and set in it three diamonds, representing the silmarils.

“You, my wife,” says Fëanáro, “have a skill beyond compare. I only hope I will live up to this vision you have of me.”

“How could you not?” she laughs. “Curufinwë Fëanáro has never failed at anything he set his mind to.”

 

When Fëanáro leaves, dragging their seven sons into ruin with him, she takes her hammer and smashes the statue to bits.

 

She is alone. Her sculptures become abstract, dark and twisted and ugly. Sometimes she forgrts to leave the studio, because who could keep track of time when the sky is always in darkness? She works constantly, pounding away at the stone and clay.

The invitation from the new queen Eärwen comes as a surprise, inviting her to tea at the palace. The two of them had never been close, because their husbands’ affection was less than brotherly, and, after all, Nerdanel’s husband and sons had just slaughtered some of Eärwen’s people. Still, she goes with a kind of morbid curiosity, wondering what they want with her.

Eärwen and Nolofinwë’s wife Anairë are waiting for her, watching with shadowed eyes and faces thinner and paler than she remembered. Nerdanel stands in the doorway, waiting. Then Anairë laughs. “You look almost as terrible as we feel.”

They do not talk about their husbands and lost children on that first day. They comment on little things, like Anairë’s dress and the state of the castle and the weather, which is dark and never changes.

Eärwen has a shred of hope - Arafinwë has heard from the Valar that they are trying to save some of the light of the Trees and create new vessels to bear the light.

The three of them form an alliance as the mothers left behind, with an unspoken agreement that they will not hold each other accountable for their husbands or children. Slowly, Nerdanel begins to open up, to speak about her boys, and they weep together.

“I wish he had at least left me the twins,” she says. The three of them are wandering on the seashore. She traces a swirling pattern in the sand with one toe. “They were too young to go. I wish he hadn’t stolen all my sons from me.”

“Artanis is even younger, but there was no stopping her,” says Eärwen, who is wading amongst the stars reflected in the waves. “She was searching for something I could not understand.”

“The same for Irissë, who was not going to be left behind,” said Anairë, twisting her dark hair back so the breeze does not snarl it. “She made her own choice. I had to let her, like I let my boys. Your sons made their own choices too. You cannot blame Fëanor entirely.”

She does not know whether that makes her feel better or worse.

It is Eärwen who breaks the news of Fëanor’s death. She has heard from Arafinwë, who has heard from Varda, who still hears the cries of the elves in Middle Earth. Anairë comes and sits beside her as Nerdanel kneads and kneads and kneads the clay without sculpting. She does not cry. Anairë talks and talks so Nerdanel will feel less alone.

 

The moon rises, and then the sun. Anairë, Ëarwen, and Nerdanel watch the new lights. “Our children will see them, over in Middle Earth,” Nerdanel muses.

“Give them our love!” Anairë shouts at the sun. “Findekáno will be so happy. He always loved gold.”

“As does Findaráto,” says Eärwen, laughing.

“Tyelkormo will like the moon best, I think,” says Nerdanel. “I wonder if he will realize it’s Tillion, his fellow hunter, driving it.”

“Which one do you like best?” asks Ëarwen.

Nerdanel considers. “The moon. It reminds me of marble.”

Eärwen nods. “I agree, it’s gentler.”

“Well I love them both!” Anarië laughs. “It finally looks as if the world might be set back to rights.”

 

Nerdanel’s sculptures become delicate, intricate, and small. She works on a series of birds, carving each feather. Her favorite sculpture of the century is a tiny granite butterfly crawling out of it’s chrysalis. The wings, still damp and curling are so thin they were almost translucent. It takes her a year and countless failed attempts to figure out how to file the antennae fine as a hair without snapping them.

The dead begin to return from Mandos. First it is the Teleri, the victims of the Kinslaying, and Alqualondë once again grows into a thriving city full of song. Then a few of the Noldor exiles return, the noblest, with the fewest crimes to repent and overcome in Mandos’s Halls.

Her nephew Findaráto returns. Nerdanel has never seen Eärwen so happy, embracing her son and weeping. Then Findaráto turns to Nerdanel. “My lady aunt,” he says, “I have a message for you from the Halls.”

Her blood runs cold. “From Fëanáro?”

Findaráto ducks his head. “No, my lady. I never saw his shade. The message is from your youngest son. He called himself Umbarto.”

“He is dead?” she chokes out. Her mind is whirring, flashing with the red hair and freckled faces of the twins. She can hear them laughing together and she thinks she might vomit. Her baby, who used to sit and watch her sculpt in the studio, her own hazel eyes wide in his face until his impatient twin dragged him away.

Findaráto pales. “He died before Fëanáro, my lady. Did no one tell you?”

Eärwen goes to Nerdanel, and puts an arm around her to hold her upright. “The Valar did not say,” she says, her voice thin. “We rarely get news from them of Middle Earth. I did not even know that you had passed, my son.”

I suppose it was not important enough for them to care! Nerdanel thinks, they took no notice of my baby, my baby...

“He found me in the halls and sends his love,” Findaráto continues quietly. “He asked me to tell you that he is sorry, and that he tried to come back to you. He has repented of his deeds, but he broke the Oath, and unless the Oath is pardoned, he cannot return. When that day comes, he will find you again.”

Nerdanel’s tears taste like the ocean. “How did he die?”

Findaráto twists his hands, eyes darting. “I was not there.”

“But you know.”

“It was an accident, my lady. A terrible accident. He snuck aboard one of the ships, hoping to sail back, but Fëanáro did not know it and ordered the ships burned…”

It was well Fëanáro was dead. It was well he was deep within the Halls of Mandos, because if he were here, she would have ripped out his throat with her teeth for what he did to their son.

 

She goes to Manwë and begs him to absolve the Oath. “If you do not allow my sons to repent and return,” she concludes, “if you do not forgive them, the Oath will simply force them down an ever-darkening path, and more evil will be done.”

“I forgave my brother,” says Manwë. “I allowed him to return, and believed he had repented. Look what has happened now.”

“My sons are not Morgoth!” Nerdanel snaps. “They’re boys, and they have good and evil in them like all of Iluvátar’s children. Leave Fëanáro, but have mercy on Umbarto, at least, who has already suffered and repented-”

Manwë cuts her off. “It is not in my power. They swore to Eru himself. I must ponder his will.”

For a moment she understands why Fëanáro rebelled against him. Then she takes a deep breath and reminds herself that it was Fëanáro’s arrogance that created this mess. “Ponder it, then,” she says, and goes home to carve the twins as sleeping elflings, curled up together and at peace. She wonders if any of her other sons are dead, and then does not allow herself to consider it.

It all changes when the half-elves arrive, bearing a silmaril. After all the centuries, the silmaril shines as brightly as it did on Fëanáro’s brow. She wants to hurl it into the sea. But the half-elves are on her side. The man, Eärendil, pleads before Manwë for mercy and forgiveness for the exiles, and aid against Morgoth.

“I have pondered Eru’s will,” says Manwë. For a second, his eyes flick towards Nerdanel who stands in the audience. “And I agree.”

The Valar and the Noldor go to war across the sea. Nerdanel does not go. She and a team of engineers are busy building fortifications around Tirion in case the offence fails and Morgoth dares to attack Arda. It is there she encounters the half-elven woman, Elwing, who recoils in anger when she hears who Nerdanel is.

“Your sons killed my family,” she spits.

Nerdanel’s blood freezes. “No,” she says, “that’s not possible.”

“They attacked my childhood home. They butchered my father and chased my brothers into the woods to starve. They would have killed me too if I hadn’t been whisked away in time. We got three of them in that battle though - the fair one, the dark one, and the smith.”

The names pound in her head. Tyelkormo, Carnistir, Atarincë.

“The rest of them came back to finish the job.” Elwing’s voice rises to a screech. “They have my sons. What have they done to my sons?”

“They wouldn’t hurt them!” Nerdanel can’t imagine it - not of Maitimo, who had been so good with his younger siblings, nor of Maglor, who was so gentle he could not hunt because wounded animals made him cry, or of little Ambarussa, who was mischievous but harmless and eager to please.

“How can you say that? You don’t know what they’ve become.” Elwing fixes her sharp grey eyes on Nerdanel. “They’re monsters.”

Nerdanel goes off to be sick.

Anarië comes to her later. “Do you remember,” she says, “Tyelkormo teaching Irissë to shoot a bow, and how she hit a bull’s eye and he looked so stunned?”

Nerdanel gives a small smile. “Do you remember Findekáno singing as loudly and off-key as possible just to make Maitimo laugh?”

“That’s how I like to think of them,” says Anarië. “They were happy once, and innocent once. It must still be part of them somewhere, and perhaps what once was can be again.”

Nerdanel carves a statue of Tyelkormo giving little Atarincë a piggyback ride, both of them screaming with laughter. She carves a bust of elfling Carnistir with his quizzical expression, head cocked to one side, brow furrowed, biting one chubby lip. They look too sweet to be monsters, but it was said that even Sauron was beautiful.

 

Manwë, true to his word, finally absolves the Noldor of their oath, and the next day Umbarto is at her doorstep. He drops to his knees before her and begs forgiveness, but she falls to her knees as well, and flings her arms around him and they are both sobbing in the doorway.

“My son, my son,” she says. “Of course I forgive you.”

Although his body is intact, he has changed. His eyes are sadder, his speech gentler, and when she calls him Ambarussa he shakes his head. “I lost my right to that name when I abandoned my twin. You were right when you named me Umbarto.”

“Finderáto told me what your father did to you,” she says, clenching her fists. She does not want to think of the fire searing her son’s flesh, or the pain he must have felt choking on the smoke.

“Do not blame Father, Mother. I chose to break the Oath and was doomed.”

“Do you regret it?” she asks.

“It’s hard to, now,” he says, looking around. “I’m home with you, sooner than my brothers, I might add, and I have a new body, and I avoided killing any more elves. If this is my fate, I thank the Valar.”

Umbarto goes to the Teleri to apologize. He’s cooly received, as expected, but the Teleri allow him to do repairs to the sanitation system of Alqalondë as penance. Nerdanel has never been more proud. Perhaps I raised one of them right, she thinks. Perhaps there is hope for the rest.

 

The war against Morgoth is won, and ships of Noldor exiles return home. Nerdanel’s sons are not among them. Ambarussa was already dead, and Maitimo and Makalaurë pointlessly stole the silmarils from Eonwë himself. Maitimo then took his own life, and Makalaurë had not been seen since.

“They should have just broken the Oath!” says Umbarto, weeping. “Wasn’t it void at that point anyway? Why did they do it?”

“I blame myself,” says Nerdanel quietly. She has never admitted this before. It’s easier to blame Fëanáro, to hate Fëanáro. “I blame myself. I pushed them too hard, trying to make Maitimo the perfect heir, and Makalaurë a great musician. I wanted them to follow their passions but if I had just taught them it was alright to fail… perhaps they would have made it back to me.”

“They still might,” says Umbarto.

There is still one more descendent left in Middle Earth - Atarincë’s son Telperinquar. For some reason he has refused to return. He was almost a child when his father took him into exile; it is probable that he has forgotten his grandmother.

 

She teaches Umbarto how to sculpt. After centuries in Mandos’s unchanging halls, he wants to sculpt everything he sees. She carves mountains and trees, dolphins leaping out of waves.

It’s Carnistir who returns to her next, anxious and blushing. “Hello, Mother,” he says, biting his lip. “I finally escaped that hellhole.” He has lost some of his anger, but it’s replaced with a kind of weariness that makes her weep.

She makes him apologize to the Teleri as well, and orders him not to use his sharp tongue. “Be nice. Be sincere.”

“I’m always sincere. That’s why people don’t like me,” he says. “It’s not my fault I tell the truth.” But he goes and apologizes and afterward gets a job handling finances for King Finarfin, which seems to please him.

 

Centuries pass and her grandson Telperinquar returns, not from over the sea but from Mandos. Sauron, she learns, had tricked him and tortured him and killed him, though Tyelpe refuses to talk about that. He looks unnervingly like Atarincë and Fëanáro, but has a sweetness to him not present in his father or grandfather. He is fascinated by Fëanáro’s old forge and soon takes it over, crafting and experimenting. The familiar sounds of hammers on metal ringing out at all hours is oddly comforting.

 

Tyelkormo and Atarincë return together. Tyelkormo has a dead deer slung over his back that he offers to her as a sort of apology present, saying he killed it on the way here. The whole thing reminds her of a cat leaving a dead mouse on a doorstep, and it makes her laugh through her tears.

Atarincë turns, listening to the ringing of hammers. “Who is using the forge?”

“Your son,” she says.

Atarincë turns white, then red, then white again. “I suppose I’d better go face him,” he says, and walks toward the forge like someone heading to his doom.

Nerdanel can hear shouting from the forge, and words in Khuzdul that are probably curses, and a crash that makes her think something has been thrown, but when father and son emerge, both tear-stained, the tension seems to have dissolved.

 

When Ambarussa returns, he walks right past Nerdanel and punches Umbarto in the stomach.

Umbarto is doubled over, wheezing. “I suppose I deserve that.”

“That’s for abandoning me, you orc bastard. You left me there alone.”

“Ambarussa, I’m sorry-”

Ambarussa bursts into tears and tackles his twin in a hug. “I should have listened to you,” he said. “We should have gone back together.”

It is strange, to see the twins together after that. Before the exile, even Nerdanel would have said their personalities were virtually indistinguishable, but now differences could be seen. They were both still observant and intensely curious, but Ambarussa had grown wilder, fiercer, and louder, whereas Umbarto had become cautious, gentle, and quiet. Nerdanel suspects that it is strange for them as well, learning how to relate to someone who was no longer their mirror, but eventually the two realize that their changed personalities complement each other, and regain their old closeness.

 

Another age of Arda passes, and the last of the Noldor exiles return - except for Makalaurë. In the east, elves and magic are fading, and the elves are journeying west to Valinor where they flourish. It is a time of great joy and prosperity.

Carnistir comes to her one day with an odd request. Two hobbits, small, strange creatures of great importance had just arrived in Valinor. “They are mortal,” he tells her, “and their lifespans are short. Would you mind doing a statue of them so they will always be remembered?”

Intrigued, she agrees. She carves a statue of the elder one first, sitting on a stool with a book and a pipe in his hand. He is a cheerful fellow who makes her laugh while he poses by telling stories of dragons and dwarves and spiders. He is very pleased with his statue and shakes her hand, thanking her enthusiastically.

The younger hobbit is nervous, and has an old melancholy about him that makes him seem almost elven. “How would you like to pose?”

“I don’t know,” he says, anxiously rubbing a white jewel hanging from his neck. “I really don’t think I deserve a statue, since it’s so much trouble. I’m only here because it pleases Uncle Bilbo.”

“It’s no trouble, it’s my pleasure” says Nerdanel. “And from what I’ve heard, you deserve more than a statue, Frodo Baggins.”

“I wish they’d stop saying that! I didn’t do anything I was supposed to do.” Frodo puts a hand to his face in misery. Nerdanel notices that one of his fingers is gone. “It was Sam, really, who did everything. Sam deserves a statue, not me.” His hand drops and for a brief moment Frodo’s eyes flick to the East. 

Nerdanel knows his expression. She’s seen it on Anairë and Eärwen and on the faces of countless other elves. She’s felt it on herself. “You’re waiting for him.”

“Well, yes. At least I hope he’ll come. Gandalf said he might someday.” Frodo shrugs, looking down and to the side with a small, shy smile.

“Don’t move!” Nerdanel orders. Frodo obeys. “That’s it. That’s the statue.” She sketches as hastily as she can. “If it’s any consolation, I’ve learned over the years that most people eventually come back to you.”

“He wouldn’t be coming back, though. I left him. He was heartbroken when I did. I don’t know if he’ll forgive me.”

“When my sons left me, I was heartbroken. When some of them came back, I forgave them. I would give anything to have all of them with me now.”

“Sometimes,” said Frodo, “I do not think I deserve his forgiveness. I know I do not deserve his love. I let the ring consume me and twist me into something dark and selfish and angry, and at the last moment, I chose it, even though he told me not to. I chose the ring over everything.” He glanced up at her. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to make you cry…”

“Do not apologize.” She brushed her eyes. “It’s just, what you’re saying reminded me of my sons, who were destroyed by the Oath. I - I suppose Fëanáro too. And I think Maitimo is still sitting in the Halls of Mandos because he feels he does not deserve life, and I know Makalaurë is wandering somewhere alone because he is too ashamed to face me or the others that love him. The guilt has destroyed them, and I just wish they would forgive themselves, because I do love them, no matter what they’ve done. Maybe that’s the best gift you could give Sam.”

“It’s so hard,” said Frodo. “But I suppose it’s the least I can do. I hope your sons come back. Your husband as well.”

“Fëanáro is different,” she said. “I tried everything I could to make him see sense. I tried to make him stay, if only for love of me, and he went on a mad quest that destroyed our entire family. I’ve heard he’s sitting down in Mandos too proud and angry to be rebodied. I’ve heard he won’t be released again until the end of the world.”

“Did you know,” said Frodo, slowly, “that at Mount Doom, Sam was right behind me, begging and pleading me to destroy the ring, and instead I put it on? His love for me was not enough. My love for him was not enough. Love was not enough to save me. I think we all like to believe it’s this all-consuming force that can save the world, like Beren and Luthien… but sometimes it isn’t.”

“I know,” she said.

“We’re weak and fallible,” said Frodo, looking down at his maimed hand in disgust, “and our love is too. But… it is good. If it weren’t for Sam, I would have died a thousand times during the quest. I would have stayed inside that volcano after the ring was destroyed and let the fires take me. If I didn’t have hope of seeing Sam again… well, I wouldn’t even be here, trying to heal.”

“You are wise, hobbit,” she says.

“I am not,” he replies, “I only know what I have seen.”

 

She carves a statue of Fëanáro. She has to use Atarincë for the model, but his smile isn’t quite right, so she models it off of Ambarussa’s laugh. She carves a scene from her memory, of the early years of her marriage. Fëanáro, every line of his body tense with laughter, has just reached the exciting part of the bedtime story he’s telling tiny Maitimo and Ambarussa, who are nestled in his lap. Maitimo is staring up at him with wide eyes and open mouth, while sleepy Makalaurë leans on his father’s chest, playing with Fëanáro’s hair. 

She stands back and looks at her work, at her happy family, the way she chooses to remember them, like Anarië told her so many years ago. What exactly had Anarië said? Perhaps what once was can be again.

“My boys,” she says, putting her hands on the stone heads of Maitimo and Makalaurë. “My first sons, and my last ones home, it seems.” She wonders if her voice can carry across earth and sea. “I’m sorry if I wasn’t the best mother, if I made you feel that you had to prove yourselves and live up to your pride. It isn’t true. I love you even if you fail. I’ll always love you. You know that, and when you’re ready to be loved again, come home to us. I know you will.”

She looks at Fëanaro. “Well, Curufinwë Fëanáro, you certainly made a mess of things.” She sighs. “I’m sorry our love wasn’t enough. It certainly wasn’t perfect but… you told me once that you only hoped you would live up to my vision of you. This is my vision of you. When you can achieve that, even if it takes you until the end of time, come find me.”

Shouting is heard from the house. From the voices, Nerdanel determines that Ambarussa has stolen one of Tyelkormo’s bows. Shaking her head, she sets out to find her sons.


End file.
